*** Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this column includes the name of people who have passed ***
Global health news, leadership from South Australia, concerns about NDIS reforms, and calls for aged care reform to address the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are among the wide-ranging issues covered in this column.
The quotable?
Mabo Day is therefore not simply a commemoration of an historic legal and moral victory. It’s a time to reflect on the strength, resilience and leadership of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and a reminder that truth-telling, justice and self-determination remain unfinished work.”
Global justice, what might it take?
“Imagine a future in which everyone enjoys high levels of wellbeing; where 90 percent of the world’s population doubles their income but works half the hours we work today. A world in which the bottom half of humanity sees its share of global wealth rise from just two percent today to 30 percent; a world where we consume enough, but nobody over-consumes.
“And imagine achieving this on a planet that can comfortably sustain human life without its climate breaking down.
“Against the bleak techno-authoritarian futures now being sold to us, a radical new vision for global progress in the 21st century feels urgently needed. The most credible vision is one in which the habitability of the planet is a precondition for human development and equality.”
This is how Professor Thomas Piketty, from the Paris School of Economics and co-director of the World Inequality Lab, and colleagues describe the vision presented in their new publication, ‘The Global Justice Report: A Plan for Equality & Prosperity Within Planetary Boundaries’.
The report attempts to set out a new vision for global progress in the 21st century: grounding human development and equality in planetary habitability. It explores the conditions under which the world could move toward this horizon and traces an economically and ecologically consistent transition path from 2026 to 2100.
It argues that it is possible to reconcile planetary habitability and high wellbeing for all, but only through transformation rests on three pillars simultaneously: fast decarbonisation of energy systems; a major shift toward sufficiency – understood as a sharp reduction in labour hours and material footprint and large changes in consumption patterns, food habits, land use, and forest cover; and a drastic reduction in inequality of income, wealth and power, both between countries and within them.
The Global Justice Project is a collective research initiative developed by the World Inequality Lab, based primarily at the Paris School of Economics and the University of Berkeley, California.
Read the report here, and an overview in The Guardian, A good life for the 99% isn’t a pipe dream: it can be done. Here’s how.
Healthcare under fire
The International Council of Nurses has issued a statement expressing “grave concern” about the “relentless and escalating violence against healthcare workers, facilities, and patients across 33 countries and territories in 2025”, documented in the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition’s annual report, Care in the Crosshairs.
“The report records 2,546 horrific attacks on healthcare in 2025, including data showing 455 health workers killed, 218 kidnapped, 263 arrested or detained, and 790 incidents of damage or destruction of health facilities.
“ICN deplores the unacceptable and unconscionable targeting of health personnel and is particularly alarmed by the scale of kidnappings (which have increased) as well as arrests/detentions, which can subject health workers to torture, prolonged psychological harm, and violence, and which often punish health workers for upholding their ethical duty to provide impartial care to all.
“ICN is also gravely concerned by the data showing an alarming surge in drone-related attacks and a drastic increase in attacks perpetrated by state actors, which now account for 64 percent of all incidents. This indicates dangerous escalations in the methods, scale, and nature of violence directed at healthcare, with important implications for the implementation of International Humanitarian Law to protect health workers.”
Meanwhile, the Director-General of the World Health Organization has called for an end to attacks on healthcare facilities and health workers in south Lebanon, where Israeli attacks have killed at least 130 medical workers since fighting between Hezbollah and Israel started on 2 March, according to a report in The Guardian on 4 June citing the Lebanese Ministry of Health.
Other global health news
#AusPol
The South Australian Government committed in this week’s State Budget to investing $8.5 million over four years to establish a Commission to undertake Truth-Telling and progress Treaty activities, in line with its commitment to the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
The Government said the State’s First Nations Voice to State Parliament had advocated for the Commission.
Deputy Premier Kyam Maher said truth-telling would enable Aboriginal people to tell the stories of their community’s experiences with past government policies and social norms, to help build common understanding across the state.
This investment will support further work toward Treaty, a formal agreement between the State Government and Aboriginal South Australians aiming to close the gap and improve outcomes in health, education, economic development and other areas.
“We were the first jurisdiction in Australia to establish a First Nations Voice to State Parliament – and its advice on a number of key issues is already making a significant difference in a range of key areas, including justice, policing, health and wellbeing,” he said in a statement.
“We can only truly move forward by acknowledging and recognising the history and experience of Aboriginal people, and with a shared goal of learning from the mistakes of the past to support healing and a better future for all South Australians.”
And in other news from the world of politics and policy…
Stories of health reform
Mabo Day
The National Association of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Workers and Practitioners (NAATSIHWP) issued this statement marking Mabo Day:
“June 3rd, 1992, remains one of the most significant dates in Australian history.
After more than a decade of advocacy led by Eddie Koiki Mabo and the Meriam people of Mer, the High Court of Australia delivered the landmark Mabo Decision that transformed the nation’s legal and moral landscape. In overturning the colonial doctrine of Terra Nullius, the Court formally recognised that our Peoples hold enduring connections and responsibilities to lands and waters.
Through the courage and determination of Eddie Mabo and the Meriam people, the Mabo decision compelled Australia to confront the truths our Peoples had always maintained. This continent was never empty. Australia’s history did not begin with British settlement. Our responsibilities to Country have continued despite colonisation.
The passing of the Native Title Act (1993) represented a major shift within Australian law and a significant moment in the ongoing struggle for recognition and justice. Yet, for many of our Communities the struggle for land rights is ongoing. The process of pursuing Native Title continues to operate within the constraints of a colonial legal system. Native Title is not equivalent to full ownership of the land, and colonial laws and systems of land tenure continue to impact our Communities today. Many of our members have firsthand experience navigating these processes and understand the complexity, burden and emotional toll they carry.
These ongoing realities reflect why Eddie Mabo’s struggle for justice remains so significant today. Remembering Mabo Day also means remembering Eddie Mabo not only as the central figure in this landmark case, but as a leader, organiser, educator and political activist.
His legacy extends far beyond the court room. His leadership reflected a lifelong commitment to self-determination, the protection of culture, and the pursuit of justice. His determination and resilience helped to create lasting change not only for the Meriam people, but for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people across the country.
Mabo Day is therefore not simply a commemoration of an historic legal and moral victory. It’s a time to reflect on the strength, resilience and leadership of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and a reminder that truth-telling, justice and self-determination remain unfinished work.
The legacy of Eddie Koki Mabo stands as a powerful reminder that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have always belonged to this Country and always will.”
Honouring a trailblazer
A bronze statue honouring the legacy of trailblazing Yankunytjatjara woman Dr Lowitja O’Donoghue AC CBE DSG was unveiled on Kaurna Country in Adelaide this week. Photos and more details about the statue are here.
The South Australian Government said in a statement that this is the first of an initial six statues to memorialise prominent Aboriginal South Australians acknowledging their extraordinary contributions to our communities and our State.
“If we look around our cities, the physical landscape tells a story. But for a long time, it has been an incomplete story. The statues and monuments at the heart of our towns and cities have been almost exclusively about the history and stories of post European settlement in Australia, and almost exclusively of non-Aboriginal people,” said the statement.
“This starts the process of telling a much broader story of the role of Aboriginal leadership that has shaped and continues to shape modern Australia.”
All in?
National Reconciliation Week ended on 3 June. The theme this year was ‘All In’, “a call for all Australians to commit wholeheartedly to reconciliation every single day”.
However, it is clear that many governments are not ‘all in’. The Queensland Government ignored the concerns of First Nations groups, communities and Elders, and started construction on Brisbane’s controversial Olympic stadium in Victoria Park, one of the most significant Indigenous site in Brisbane. Read more at The Conversation.
Meanwhile, Sisters Inside has expressed deep concern about recommendations arising from the Queensland Child Safety Commission of Inquiry, warning that proposed adoption reforms risk further entrenching the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, while failing to address the underlying causes that bring families into contact with the child protection system.
CEO Debbie Kilroy said the report documents a system in crisis but ultimately proposes solutions that expand state power over families rather than investing in the conditions that allow families to stay together.
“The report acknowledges that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children remain dramatically represented in out-of-home care, yet one of its central recommendations is to make adoption a more prominent permanency option,” Kilroy said in a statement released today.
“For Aboriginal communities, adoption can never be separated from the history of the Stolen Generations. Our children were removed under policies that were also justified as being in their best interests. We cannot pretend that history has no relevance today.”
Sisters Inside warns that expanding adoption risks making permanent what are often temporary crises created by poverty, housing insecurity, family violence, disability, racism and a lack of support.
The group is also concerned by aspects of the report that question current approaches to Aboriginal self-determination and the role of Aboriginal community-controlled organisations. “Aboriginal-led organisations are repeatedly asked to prove themselves, while the state systems that have removed generations of our children continue to be treated as the default solution despite decades of harm,” Kilroy said.
Meanwhile, in NSW…
Aged care updates
Conference Watch
The National Indigenous Times has covered the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) Summit: AIATSIS chair urges mob to carry Summit message home.
Upcoming conferences and events
See previous editions of ICYMI
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